The Perk, Saturday Morning

[firstofitskind]

Part of Liam had expected to wake early Saturday and find his mother gone, that it had all just been yet another strange dream. But he'd poked his head into the guest room at the house and found she was still there, asleep. This was real.

She was here.

And now... they were sitting at the Perk, with breakfast pastries and tea, and he was waiting for his girlfriend to arrive so he could introduce her to his mother. Real, maybe, but also very, very surreal.

[ooc: for them that's mentioned, but also open!]

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[arboreal_priestess]

Verity was...a little nervous, yeah. She'd never done the whole 'meet the parents' thing. She'd never been in a relationship that had ever gotten that far. Hell, she'd never been in a relationship real enough to get to that point.

And, she could admit, at least in the privacy of her own thoughts, that while she would have traded a lot for Siobhan to be alive for Liam's sake, there's always been a tiny part of her that had been relieved that 'The Hoop of Maternal Affection' was a hoop she'd never have to jump through.

Only now...now she did. Siobhan was here and wow was that a lot of pressure. Fortunately, Verity was good at performing under pressure. She'd been doing it her whole life. Putting on a showstopper smile, she entered the Perk with a wave, beelining towards Liam and the unfamiliar woman beside him.

[firstofitskind]

And on the flip side, Liam had never given much thought to how to introduce anyone to his parents. Not just because until Verity, there had never been anyone where things had gone beyond casual flirtation, but because none of them were alive anymore (well, Ha'gel existed in that sort of dubious in-between state, but Liam had not seen him at all since his own resurrection, so).

Liam had been in the middle of explaining to Siobhan some of the many strange things that happened on this particular island- like the time a few months ago when everyone had turned in to teenagers- when he looked up at the sound of someone entering the shop to see Verity.

His face lit up as she made her way over, and he pulled out the third chair at the table so she could take a seat.

"Verity, this- this is my mother." She knew that, genius. "Age- um. Siobhan Beckett." Maybe by the end of the weekend he'd stop tripping over something as simple as calling her by her name. "Mother," was that too formal? But 'Mom' didn't seem right, either, it implied a level of familiarity that would be impossible to reach, given the circumstances, "Verity Price. The woman I'm absolutely crazy about."

[tiedtothestars]

"I'm glad you clarified that, as it wasn't quite clear when you first described her to me," Siobhan teased gently.

"It's a pleasure," she said to Verity, with a slight nod.

[arboreal_priestess]

"The pleasure is mine, Agent Beckett," Verity said. If Liam didn't know what to call her, Verity knew even less. Was 'Agent' still appropriate? Ms.? Just jump to calling her 'Mom' to freak out Liam? "It really means a lot to Liam that you're here." She looked up to Liam and something in her face eased, replaced by tenderness. "So it means a lot to me, too."

[tiedtothestars]

"I can see that," Siobhan said honestly. "And 'Siobhan' will do just fine. I'm not a Companion Agent anymore, after all." Her gaze slid over to Liam with the last part of her statement, a reminder for him as much as it was an invitation for Verity.

"So," she continued, "Liam was telling me earlier that you found a dragon?"

[arboreal_priestess]

"Siobhan," Verity said with a grin. "A 'good Irish name' as my dad would say. His mother's family is Irish, by way of the Ó hÉilidhe clan out of...Cannaught? I wanna say."

Her father, amateur historian, would know more. And, if he had access to Covenant records, even more than that.

"Though by the time the family came to America, we were just Healys." Probably for the best, because tiny Verity had had enough trouble spelling her name, never mind if it were still Gaelic.

"And yes! Well, we found a male dragon, specifically. His name is William. Turns out we've been living with female dragons for centuries and just didn't know that was what they were."

[tiedtothestars]

Still, as someone who felt very strongly about genealogy and family history, Siobhan could appreciate what Verity was sharing.

And speaking of names... "William," Siobhan echoed. "Not exactly a name that makes you think 'dragon', but I suppose nobody's about to tell him that, now are they?"

[arboreal_priestess]

Of the scant things Verity knew about Siobhan, that she was a) very Irish and b) into genealogy were pretty high up on the list. So as soon as Liam had called her about his mother being on the island, Verity was calling her dad to ask for anything she could use in conversation.

Her dad had taken 'Liam's mom is temporarily back from the dead' in stride. Their family baby-sitter was a ghost, after all.

"That was pretty much my entire reaction," Verity admitted with a chuckle. "I wasn't going to risk finding out definitively that I am not flame-retardant by telling a dragon the size of a bus that his name wasn't draconic enough for me."

[firstofitskind]

Verity's family's experience with ghostly babysitters was precisely why Liam hadn't been terribly nervous about the 'temporarily back from the dead' aspect of this particular meeting.

Everything else, though? Yeah. So he'd visibly relaxed when his mother decided to open the conversation by asking Verity about the dragon.

“An exercise in restraint that I was pretty damned glad for, I’ll tell you that much.”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Flame is not my best color," Verity said, with a grin that welcomed Liam back to the conversation. "I even know that for a fact, thank you, sibling."

[firstofitskind]

Liam supposed he should be surprised, but, well, he’d met Verity’s siblings now.

“Antimony?” he guessed.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Alex, actually," Verity said. "In his defense, it was mostly a mistake."

Antimony had never set anything on fire that she hadn't intended to.

"But if you're ever looking through family albums and see me with a really unfortunate haircut around fifth grade, you'll know why."

[firstofitskind]

The warm, fluttery feeling Liam got with every casual reminder that they really were in this for the long haul? Not going to stop happening any time soon. Hence the soft smile at something as mundane as ‘looking through family albums’.

“Siblings?” Siobhan asked. “Older or younger?”

[arboreal_priestess]

"One of each," Verity said with a warm, fond smile. "Alex is the oldest and the only boy. Antimony is the youngest and the only...Antimony." She cast an amused glance at Liam. "How would you describe her?"

[firstofitskind]

“Oh, no, I think you’re on the right track with the idea that she defies conventional description,” Liam said. There was also the impression he got that she resented her elder siblings’ closeness, but now wasn’t the time to bring that topic up.

“You sound like you’re very close to your family,” Siobhan observed, her tone clearly approving.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I am," Verity said softly. "My family has a long, somewhat difficult history, so we've learned to rely on ourselves over the generations. And my mom is adopted; my grandparents couldn't have children -" since her grandmother was a Cuckoo and her grandfather a Revenant "- so that's really helped solidify the idea that family is more than just blood or marriage, it's love and care and being for each other when you need it."

She frowned thoughtfully and looked at Liam. "Did I ever tell you that, technically, Sarah is our aunt? She was adopted by Grandma and Grandpa Baker, just like mom. Just...thirty-five years later."

Way more than she'd normally tell a stranger about her family, but this was Liam's mom.

[firstofitskind]

"You did not," Liam said, shaking his head. "I can see why you use 'cousin', though. It'd be strange to think of someone so close to your own age as your aunt."

Said the six-year-old who looked to be within a few years of his own mother's age.

[tiedtothestars]

And the look Siobhan gave Liam made it clear that she noticed the irony of that particular statement, thank you very much.

"Blood certainly isn't the be-all-end-all," Siobhan admitted. "Even someone like me, who spent a great deal of time researching her family lines, can admit that."

[arboreal_priestess]

"What sparked your love of genealogy?" Verity asked, resting her head on her chin. "Something specific, or just a general love of history, or...?"

[tiedtothestars]

"My parents moved around a lot when I was young," Siobhan told her. "Always just the three of us, and we never really put down roots anywhere. I wanted to understand where it was I came from."

[arboreal_priestess]

"That makes sense," Verity said. "How long ago did your family come over from Ireland?"

[tiedtothestars]

"Oh, they never did," Siobhan explained. "I was based in Belfast with the UK Companion, but was on assignment in DC when Ha'gel's prison was inadvertently discovered and he was freed. Naturally, I was tapped to join the search party, and, well... I believe Liam's told you how that ended up."

[firstofitskind]

"'On assignment'," Liam said with a snort. "That's one way to put it. You suspected Lili- Captain Marquette- was a spy and you were working to prove it."

"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" Siobhan pointed out. Of course, at the time, she'd thought she was doing the right thing. Now? Not so much. "She was a Liberation spy."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Did you tell her that you saw Lili last weekend?" Verity asked. "And Ariel, too?"

[tiedtothestars]

"He did not," Siobhan shook her head. "Though that's good to hear, as I suppose that means she took my request to watch over him seriously," she added. Yes, literally hours after attempting to get someone arrested for treason, she'd entrusted them with the care of her newborn son.

"And who's Ariel, then?"